Giants, Selig stand ground against A’s

It feels like everyone involved in the A’s stadium discussion is wearing cement blocks on their feet. No one is budging.

Lew Wolff wants San Jose and only San Jose. The Giants are saying no way (San) Jose. MLB commissioner Bud Selig keeps saying that he hopes the two teams would find a way to work things out like big boys, which is looking pretty much impossible.

CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman reports on Thursday, the Giants stood by their stance not to give up their territorial rights, and no amount of money will change their mind.

“The Giants owners have shown no willingness to this point to sell at any price their territorial rights to the Silicon Valley…”

As for Selig, he finally took off his muzzle and made some comments about the situation today following an owners’ meeting. His comments added a new dimension to the saga, one that I doubt Wolff is even considering.

When asked if the A’s would consider relocating somewhere other than San Jose, Selig said:

“You’d have to ask Lew Wolff. That’s really his decision to make.”

What I read into this is that Selig isn’t in a hurry to ask the Giants to give up their territorial rights to San Jose, so he’s sending a message to Wolff: either build a new stadium in Oakland, sell the team or move the team elsewhere – basically, it’s time to consider every option other than San Jose.

CSN Bay Area’s Ray Ratto thinks Selig could settle this very easily, but that he, along with most of the owners, has no interest in doing anything.

Just based on what Wolff has said in the past, I doubt he likes any of those three options, but one of them is the lesser of three evils. He’s not going to sell the team and re-locating outside the Bay Area is harder than you think – and it’s not that appealing to the folks at MLB headquarters.

The only way I see this ending, much to the delight of A’s fans, is with Wolff eventually biting the bullet and building a new stadium somewhere in Oakland.